Skeeter Davis probably isn’t really my favorite singer—I mean, who is?—there are so many singers I love, and who can really say their favorite anything, unless they’re making a point of it—it’s a form of hyperbole meant to make people take notice. But her singing voice just really holds some special place for me. I suppose to many people, she has a kind of corny quality, but I see (and hear) behind that. No singer doesn’t have some pain behind their singing, and many exploit that, whether consciously or not. For whatever reason, I feel like she hides the pain—it’s not anywhere near the surface—but that quality of it being so deep, so hidden, maybe that’s one of the things that appeals to me so much about her singing.

This record is a relatively late one for her, 1969, even though she kept making records for another 20 years or so. It’s more or less her 20th LP, since she put out a couple a year in the Sixties. The cover is pretty urban and sophisticated in relation to many of her early ones. She’s wearing a fur collar and hat—you kind of wonder how hot and uncomfortable that photoshoot was. Like all of her LPs, there are six songs per side, ranging from two minutes to 3:15—“Angel of the Morning”— which is the heavy one here—I mean in recognizability—you’ve heard it, no doubt, because it was a hit song for Juice Newton in 1981—though it was written by Chip Taylor in 1966, and recorded by pretty much everyone. The version here is great. The album starts with a nice song called “Keep Baltimore Beautiful” (one of many, many songs with “Baltimore” in the title). Then there is a song called “Little Arrows,” and if you want to know what kind of jauntiness really gets on my nerves, check this one out—it’s not just annoying, it’s kind of insane. I looked it up and it was hit for someone named “Leapy Lee” in 1968. At that point the rabbit-hole warning light came on, so I wisely exited the internet.

My favorite song on the record is probably “They Don’t Make Love Like They Used To,” credited to Red Lane, a Nashville songwriter—just one of those classic sounding country songs I really like. Though all the songs are really pretty good, including the couple that Skeeter Davis wrote. The other real standout is the last song on the record, the title song, “The Closest Thing to Love (I’ve Ever Seen)”—credited to Ronny Light, who also wrote the first song, and was an arranger on this record—no doubt one of those kind of amazing Nashville pros. He also wrote the liner notes on the back of the record, a kind of sweet appreciation for Skeeter Davis, signed “A Skeeter Davis Fan.” Some day maybe I’ll meet another Skeeter Davis fan—we’ll have a lot to talk about.